St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-12-03
LABOR NOTES.
Items of Interest to the Employer and
the Employee.

Items of Interest to the Employer and
the Employee.
There is a great thought, brilliant in
slustrial suggestion, says "Listener' in
the Boston Transcript, in the case OF
Frank King, otherwise Kitty Russell,
who has been forced, according to the
young persons own story, to adopt
woman's garb and 90 out to work as a
hOusemaid and waitress in order to earn
living. Mr.. Frank King says that he
had money enough to live on without
work up to year ago. Then circum-
stances compelled him to 90 to work.
! He could find no work to do as man, but
he observed that there was always an un-
supplied demand for female domestic
help. If the work would not come
to Frank King, Frank King would go
to the work; and, as his face was
smooth and his stature moderate, and
as short hair is fashionable, he had no
difficulty in Disgusting himself in wO
mans clothes and getting a situation.
The scrutiny of likely-looking servant
girls, as everybody knows, is not keen
The advent of any kind of girl at all is,
in certain unlucky households, es
pecially suburban households, matter
for exceeding rejoicing. Kitty Russell
says, however, that she was compelled to
fly from one place to another to avoid
detection; and at last, having located
with family in Chelsea where she was
regarded as a perfect jewel, she was in
discreet enough, having a fondness for
the military, to go out and see the parade
of the First Regiment, and was pounced
upon and arrested by sharp-eyed
policeman, who detected her disguise.
So that here, for time at least, Kitty
Russells promising industrial career was
brought to a close.
Now, there is not city in the country
in which little circle of malcontents of
this description may not be found, that
is, of men who think there is fund be-
longing to the public in general which
the owners of property have got hold of,
and refuse to divide with the poor, and
who are gradually learning to hate every
man who saves, and wears good clothes
Moreover, there are demagogurs, both
native and foreign, springing up in every
direction, some sincere, and some knav
ish, ready to make a living out of their
delusions, or to express them in some
sort of crime. Into the hands of these
social pests, clergvmen among us in their
pulpts, and professors in their lecture
rooms, are every day playing either
by vague intimations that there is
shortly going to be a great ''social
revolution in which we shall
all lie on our backs and make machinery
do our work for us, or that the present
distribution of property is in the main
the result Of cheating, and that there
must be something rotten in a state of
society in which few men can accumu-
late large fortunes. What the remedy
is, how human society is ever to be at
any time anything but the product of
human character and culture, they never
tell us, but they intimate that, if the in
dustrious do not promptly divide more
freely with the idle, the frugal with the
tmprovident, the workers with the blath-
erskites, there will be trouble, mysteri
Gus in its nature, but unknown in amount.
If the Chicago tragedy teaches anything,
it teaches most impressively that this
feeling should cease.-Neeo York Post.
The Merchant World tells of the i'm
portant silk interests of Passaic county,
N. j.: In the city of Paterson alone dur
ing the past month the silk manufac-
turers have used up 305 625 ribbon labels,
and as it is only an average month, that
would make 9,667,50O labels in year.
Each label is wound around block con-
tanning ten yards of ribbon, which would
make 36,675,000 yards a year made in
Paterson alone. This is 11O,025, 900 feet,
and in 110,025,000 feet there are a
little less than 90, 731 miles. This would
reach from Washington to Java and
back. 1t is two and a half times the dis
tance to Canton, China; three times
the distance to the Cape of Good
Hope, and seven times across the
ocean from New York to England. Pat
erson manufactures three-quarters of all
the ribbons made in this country. About
one-tenth as much more is imported. AS
a considerable quantity is exported it
would be impossible to state how much
is consumed in America, but careful
calculation would perhaps make it about
10000 miles year, or considerably more
than enough to put silken belt around
the earth. The output of broad silk in
yards is about one-tenth that of the rib
bors in this country, and the product in
silk handkerchiefs about tenth more
The value runs up into the millions an
nually. Directly or indirectly the silk
in America gives employ
ment to abodt $4,000 people.
An engineer connected with the Mexi-
can Central railroad said to a ST. Louis
reporter that the officials are all Ameri-
cans, but the laborers employed are
adding: The day laborer gets
BIZ cents and bits sometimes With
this, of course, he boards himself. Good
masons get 81 25 to 81 so per day, but in
the majority of instances wages are very
low. The farm hand, for example, gets
1S4 cents per day. OF this amount 81
cents are in cash, and the rest, 124 cents.
in corn. With these wages, too, they
support enormous families. | suppose
the poor Mexican has larger family than
any other man on the face of the globe"
Molders convene at Cleveland De-
cember to form national assembly OF
iron molders.